Couples counselling
by Catherine Medici
Summary: Lizzie and Red in Harold's office, attempting to sort out their differences.


**From a prompt on the Lizzington FB page. A bit of silliness to make V's day a bit brighter :)**

 **Disclaimed of course**

* * *

Stick to your guns, Keen, she told herself.

Self talk had never been her thing. She was more of a doer. She didn't spend too much time thinking about things. She just did what she thought she should. Until now.

She'd never obsessed over things so much in her life before. And it was all because of Raymond Reddington. All the little things he did to aggravate her. All the secrets he kept. Constantly second guessing his intentions.

Enough. This ended here.

Harold Cooper entered the room, softly closing the door behind him and sitting down in his chair with a dignified silence.

He spread his hands out, gesturing to them both. "Well?"

They both started at once.

"We need a new arrangement Harold-"

"I'm getting tired of being Reddington's errand girl-"

They stopped, staring at each other hotly.

Red sat back in his chair. "I'm not the one who missed a tip entirely and let a blacklister get away because she was at the _dentist,"_ he said scathingly.

"You have practically a whole medical team following you around, ready for you at a moment's notice. Your _manicurist_ is a doctor for god's sake. What would you know about the pressures of real life? I had a day off and a sore tooth!"

He adjusted himself in the chair irritably. "I want agent Keen to myself one day a week."

"What!"

Harold shook his head, a disbelieving smile on his face. "Not a chance Reddington. You two will need to work out your differences. And you're going to do it here and now."

Stony silence met this announcement.

"Come on. Agent Keen, how does it make you feel when Reddington contacts you outside work hours about the blacklist?"

"Like I want to stab another pen in his neck," she said sullenly.

She caught a quick look at him out of the corner of her eye. His mouth had tugged into a flash of a smirk before rearranging itself into bland insouciance.

Harold cleared his throat. "Let's not dwell on the past." He looked hopefully toward Red. "Reddington, you're a man of strategy. Surely we can come up with something that suits everybody."

Red looked pleased. "Perhaps requiring Agent Keen to find an apartment instead of living out of those moldy old motel rooms would be a start? It's getting tiring having to follow her around every time she moves."

"And that's another thing!" She cried. "Stop having me followed. It's insulting. I can take care of myself."

"You don't take care of yourself. You don't eat properly, you don't sleep enough hours."

"You're watching me sleep now?"

"Hey, hey!" interjected Harold over the top of their arguing. "Enough!"

She ignored him. "He broke the coffee machine in my motel room!"

"You should drink tea anyway, it's better for you. You never answer my calls. You're being _paid_ to answer my calls."

"I am not," she said through gritted teeth, "your errand girl."

He grinned. "I agree. Labels are so unnecessary, agent Keen. You are...what you are, to me."

She sat back stiffly in her chair. Dammit he was infuriating.

"I will clear my schedule for half a day each Monday just for you, if you pull your peeping tom's back. Just so I don't have to wonder if I've got someone at my window when I'm sleeping."

He considered. "That might do. I can pull back your _security,"_ he said, emphasizing the word, "for half a day of your time. And you start answering my calls the first time I call."

She nodded, her arms folded across her chest.

"And you find an apartment," he added.

She stood stiffly. "Don't push it, Reddington."

Harold beamed at them both. "There, that wasn't so hard."

She strode toward the door, opening it, then turning back to them. She looked about to say something but stopped, leaving the room and gently closing the door behind her.

The two men looked at each other for a second before the door opened again and Lizzie's face poked through.

"And another thing! You can come and fix my coffee machine yourself. No outsourcing that one. You broke it, you fix it."

He inclined his head, giving her a gracious smile. "I'd be happy to."

* * *

An hour later, after Lizzie had finished her paperwork and cleared her desk of trash, she followed Red through the Post Office to the elevator. It was Monday afternoon. And she had agreed to a half day on Mondays. They both stepped into the elevator at the same time, standing feet apart. The silence stretched.

"So," he pursed his lips. "Dinner at seven? Dembe will pick you up."

She let out a slow breath through her nose. "Fine."


End file.
